BY CIRCULATING commentary that suggests hurricane Sandy was exacerbated by human-caused global warming, the Climate Commission is wilfully misleading the public. Let us be clear, Sandy was barely a category 1 hurricane as it crossed the densely populated north-east United States.

The enormous damage resulted not from wind, but from flooding and inundation over low-lying areas where housing and commercial development was not designed to cope with such an extreme event. Compounding the issue, vital infrastructure such as levees, public transport systems and power stations were not adequately hardened.

The flooding resulted from heavy rain and a large coastal storm surge at a time of spring tides, all eventualities that could have been predicted.

Many scientists, and now the Climate Commission, have suggested that in a warmer world tropical storms will be more frequent or more dangerous than those previously experienced. This assertion is contentious, and evidence for it is lacking.

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As has already been stressed by senior scientist Martin Hoerling from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and many other scientists, no evidence exists for any influence of global warming, let alone human-caused warming, on the intensity of hurricane Sandy.

Sandy was a decaying hurricane whose wind intensity was decreasing as it moved north across subtropical waters. Importantly, the presence of a second large weather system in the north-east Atlantic Ocean and Canada blocked the passage of the hurricane and caused its impact and storm surge to be focused in the New Jersey-New York area.

The coincident alignment of a hurricane and a large extra-tropical storm is what gave Sandy its extra intensity.

In a broader context, the lack of recent global warming is also an impediment to those who argue that Sandy was influenced by industrial carbon dioxide. There has been no significant atmospheric warming since 1996 and no ocean warming since the Argo buoy network was deployed in 2003. In consequence, global atmospheric and oceanic temperatures are now close to their average over the past 30 years.

Suggestions that higher concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide have somehow influenced the formation and development of Sandy are therefore simply untrue.

The Climate Commission appears to consider it opportune to use the harrowing Sandy event, with its loss of lives and immense destruction, to push its political agenda. But in favouring action to try to "prevent" global warming, the commission is propagating a wrong and costly message.

For most parts of the world, there exist 200-year documented records of severe weather events and their impacts. Nowhere should we be taken by surprise by a severe storm and its attendant impacts. Our understanding allows accurate estimates to be made of the frequency with which particular weather-climate hazards will recur.

Regrettably, over the past 50 years such knowledge has often been ignored as development has encroached onto flood plains and low-lying coastal margins. There are exceptions, such as the long-established levees that protect many inland river cities. Counter to that, building is now often approved within sand barrier dune systems that, before modification, protected coastal communities from flooding.

It is both costly and futile to try to minimise climate hazard through global engineering. In particular, reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide does not reduce climate risk. Instead, the cost-effective approach to dealing with all climate hazard, both natural and possibly human, is to prepare better for, and adapt better to, damaging events as they occur.

The wilful misuse of science by lobby groups to support their agendas has now become an epidemic. The view that more frequent or extreme climate events are occurring, as advanced by many commentators, directly contradicts the considered advice of scores of climate experts, including all those who wrote the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC).

That formal government advisory bodies such as the Climate Commission are supported in their flagrant disregard for scientific principles and facts by senior CSIRO and university research managers is cause for severe national concern.

A Climate Commission that had the safety and welfare of Australians at its heart would be advising Parliament to expend resources on community infrastructure that mitigates the hazards associated with climate extremes. It would resile from opportunistic attempts to link human tragedies such as Sandy with speculative anthropogenic global warming.

About 70 per cent of natural disasters are weather and climate related. Building resilience by ensuring early warning and planning robust infrastructure will enhance the safety and amenity of our communities. Sensible planning will also ensure that economic loss is minimised and that there is quick recovery in the aftermath. These are positive actions that carry a guaranteed benefit.

Why cannot Canberra politicians and their advisers work out for themselves that climate hazard is most effectively handled using prudent and cost-effective policies of preparation and adaptation for extreme events?

William Kininmonth is a meteorologist and former head of the National Climate Centre. Bob Carter is a palaeoclimatologist and a senior editor of the 2010 NIPCC report, Climate Change Reconsidered.

121 comments

Am i reading the Age ? Finally some common sense from qualified people. As they say in the classics " just give me the facts maam".

Commenter

mark

Location

melb

Date and time

November 08, 2012, 8:42AM

Mark, there are literally thousands of scientists working worldwide who are more relevantly qualified who have consistently produced research which points to the likelihood of anthropogenic global warming. Bob Carter is a geologist, not primarily a climatologist. The NIPCC report exclusively examines the literature published by climate "skeptics," whereas the IPCC report examines the work of both "skeptics" and mainstream climate scientists, ie. they consider all the "facts".

Readers, find the relevant facts yourself; search for the numbers. Search weather related disaster relief dollars being spent, where, and how often.Search what insurance companies know and project.Search the national security assessments of developed nations.These facts are collated by diverse groups whose self interest is in what is actually happening, not selling ideology.

Commenter

Lowest form of govt

Date and time

November 08, 2012, 11:03AM

This straw man again..... They are basing their recomendations ON the mainstream consensus science. Garnaut was engaged to work out the details of a scheme to address it economically, as that is his speciality, Flannery represents the consensus scientific position. The point is they are not doing the hands-on research themselves, but they are guided by the overwhelming weight of the research being conducted. They are not purporting to be climate scientists conducting research and coming to detailed conclusions themselves - Carter & Kininmonth are, or if not they are choosing to cherry-pick only from the research which support their case, virtually none of which comes from journals which are recognised as being underpinned by legitimate sound scientific publishing standards. In essence, when anyone uses this argument about peoples' credentials, they are saying "what would THEY know about it?". Garnaut & Flannery listen to people who have the specific credentials in climatology and related fields, the authors of this piece listen only to those whose findings are useful to them and they have both been shown to have deep links with lobby groups whose interests are in maintaining the status quo.

Commenter

Rich

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

November 08, 2012, 11:09AM

You will never convince a "skeptic". People will choose to believe what they believe.

Commenter

Ian

Location

Brisbane

Date and time

November 08, 2012, 11:09AM

The Age is giving the usual suspects more air time. William Kininmonth is a trumped-up weatherman in the vein of Joe Bastardi (darling of Fox News) and Bob Carter never met a coal mine he didn't like. Good to see they are still peddling the long-discredited myth that there has been no significant atmospheric warming since 1996.

The headline is misleading and The Age needs to get its act together. Even the authors do not assert that climate scientists have made claims that Sandy was 'due' to climate change.

All the reports I have read about Sandy's possible contribution to the strength of the storm contain scientists' usual caveats that reflect the uncertainties. Only people like Kininmonth and Carter talk in absolutes on this issue.

Commenter

Richard

Date and time

November 08, 2012, 11:22AM

It's not climate change or global warming that is causing the problems. Instead, it's way too many people living in places they have no business living which is causing the problems. And our modern communication systems help to highlight weather patterns. Hundres or thousands or millions of years ago, we had the disruptive weather patterns, it's just that we had no way of sharing the information with each other. Climate change is a growing and very lucrative industry and those profiting from it want to push its cause, no matter the cost, deception or lies.

Commenter

jane

Date and time

November 08, 2012, 11:49AM

Like the frog when you put it in boiling water it will jump out but if you warm him up slowly he won't know the difference. That's where the world is at present. The last 10 years has seen some really extreme weather events that I have not seen in my 55 years. But the deniers will keep on banging on as if its not happening......heads in the sand.

Commenter

Bazza

Date and time

November 08, 2012, 11:53AM

The Chair of the Climate Commission’s Science Advisory Panel Professor Matthew England states, “The evidence suggests that climate change exacerbated the severity of Hurricane Sandy.” “The shifts in climate towards higher temperatures and more moisture in the air are becoming the “new normal” which is influencing the nature and intensity of weather patterns around the world.” “Storm surges had a particularly devastating impact on areas of the USA coast. A warmer world is a world with higher sea levels that make storm surges much worse.” Professor Steffen said that “The experience in the USA demonstrates that often our infrastructure is simply not equipped to deal with an overheated climate and more intense extreme weather events"I think he knows what he is talking about.

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